Sinking Feeling

[Apollo 0]

As his shuttle prepared for landing, Apollo Link found himself on an away mission for the first time in what seemed years. The Lieutenant Commander and Chief of Science for the USS Republic had mostly been relegated to sitting at a consol watching while others ventured out into the unknowns as of late, not that he’d always minded—away missions had a way of being dangerous, but it was good to be active once more.

 

Glancing towards his android companion he smiled to himself; Joy probably needed this mission as much as anyone—she’d seemed distant as of late, drifting away from her normal self-assured personality. Something made him want to ask if she were okay, at least from a programming stand point. He doubted that she could actually feel any real emotions that weren’t programmed directly into her matrix, but could it be possible for her programming to be corrupted?

 

That’s exactly what they needed on away mission—a depressed android. Apollo pushed that thought to the back of his mind, there more important things to worry about, like finding anyone alive, or more likely the remains of a slaughtered populace.

 

Despite what he’d said to the Admiral on the bridge, he really didn’t think that the Dominion would leave anyone alive. More succinctly, he didn’t think the Cardassians, unbridled by Dominion rule would let any humans live when they could have the land for Cardassian expansion—of course that left a small problem, where were the Cardassians? Perhaps slaughtered by the Dominion at the end of the conflict?

 

Which of course left them with the same problem: there should still be a colony here, and there didn’t seem to be anything left. Apollo sighed to himself, something gave him a sinking feeling in his stomach about this mission—and it wasn’t Will’s driving.